Monday, August 22, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 22 — In the dock for sodomy for the second time in his life, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim charged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today with following in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s footsteps to end his political career so the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) can remain in power.

The former deputy prime minister-turned-opposition leader made the accusation in an unsworn statement from the dock this morning when told to enter his defence.

He explained he was opting to testify from the dock, where the prosecution has no recourse under law to cross-examine his statement, because he had no confidence he would be tried fairly, and declared the entire court process “is nothing but a conspiracy by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to send me into political oblivion by attempting once again to put me behind bars”.

“As I have said at the outset, this is not a criminal trial. It is a charade staged by the powers that be to put me out of action in order that they remain in power,” he said, noting that his ex-boss and prime minister from 1981 to 2003, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had done the same thing in the 1998 Sodomy I trial.

The grandfather, who turned 64 just a few weeks ago, described Dr Mahathir as Machiavellian in turning to all the powers of the state to get him jailed 15 years for offences he insists he did not commit.

The Federal Court overturned Anwar’s sodomy conviction in 2004, after finding contradictions in the prosecution’s case.

“Such was the tyranny and injustice done to me then. And such is the tyranny and injustice being perpetuated today.

“Najib Razak is doing the same thing as his mentor did, which is to employ all means within his power through the media, the police, the Attorney-General and the judiciary in order to subvert the course of justice and to take me out of the political equation,” said Anwar who was sacked from government in 1998.

He noted the second sodomy charge came on the heels of the Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) victories — the three-party opposition pact wrested four states from the BN while managing to keep Kelantan — in the March 2008 general election and once he qualified to contest in elections again, which he did and won in the Permatang Pauh by-election later that same year, ramping up the zeal to put him back in prison.